


Dysesthesia

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassination, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Brain Damage, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Government Experimentation, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, It's The Winter Soldier, Loss of Identity, M/M, Medical Torture, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Mental Instability, Mind Control, Minor Character Death, Murder, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Spies & Secret Agents, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Warnings should have a category just for him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:24:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2203593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“The Russians had him?”</i><br/><i>“Found him at the bottom of the ravine, right where Rogers said he’d be.”</i><br/><i>He closes his eyes and he opens them. He is awake then he is not. He is on his stomach, on his side and on his back. He feels pain, he cannot feel his legs. He cannot move his arms. Fear is the furthest thing from his mind.</i><br/> <br/>After the war, the Americans get their hands on the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. General, Doctor, Engineer, Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> So years before Cap 2 came out, someone totally called it on the kink meme by prompting: but what if the Americans trained Bucky to be the Winter Soldier?

Scrape, scrape, scrape. His body makes these soft, whispery noises as it is dragged across the snow. Oddly, he does not mind. He feels far away. Perhaps he is walking in the scarlet-edged footsteps of the man dragging him. It must be a man. Only Steve would be stupid enough to come after him. His head is a jumble of stained glass. He remembers Steve though. He closes his eyes and lets the cold claim him.

 

“Again”

“Sergeant James, Barnes. Three-two-five-five-seven-five.”

His body jerks as electricity runs through. It’s like sticking a finger in a socket but packs a stronger punch.

“Again.”

“James Barnes of the 107th—“

“Again.”

He does not understand.

“James Barnes—!”

“Again.”

“J—“

“Again.”

“Three—“

He slams back down on the surgical bed.

“Three.” He pants.

“Again.”

He ceases to answer altogether.

 

“Wake up.”

He is. He breathes through the veil of water wondering what happened. This is new. He doesn’t know the men in front of him. They are wearing different uniforms, bits of metal pinned to their chests. Even from far away, they radiate a kind of chill but not the damp, moldiness of the cells. Something stronger, wilder, and there are flickers behind his eyes, burnt black inside his skull. He doesn’t have a word for it but it is different from the world he knows, concrete walls and cinderblocks, the bucket he knows to stay far away from. Water glistens as it slides off the General’s boot. He probes for the word. He knew it once.

“Snow.” He utters victoriously.

There are whispers.

“What did he say?”

“He said snow.” Someone replies uncomfortably.

“So he speaks.”

“When it suits him.” The Officer shrugs. “Nothing important.”

“Can he be moved?”

“Ach, he is harmless.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

They throw him in a tub and wash him down. The General stares as he is cut out from the rags, scrubbed raw until his skin pulls too-tight over his bones. His head is shaved, the itchy scruff on his chin shaved. His dick too is shaved.

As he stands shivering in the frigid water, the General nods and they muzzle him. His feet are unsteady as they touch the ground. He weaves an unfamiliar path over the steps. One of the soldiers curse when he trips and strikes him hard, bruising his ribs.

“Bibikov!”

It hurts but the pain is fleeting. That is why it must be constant.

He is clothed, boots drawn tight over his feet and ankles. The door opens and the cold sears through his flesh. He wants to go back to his cell. He wants to go out. He sways drunkenly in indecision and falls when pushed.

The Lieutenant says angry words at the soldiers when he sees and they grudgingly carry him across the airfield, into a Lockheed bomber where he is strapped down while others sit down on the side opposite.

“Please.” He groans, not even sure what he is asking for. But he dislikes being on-his-back. He wants to be on-his-feet again. He misses the weight in his arms. His chest feels empty and cold.

“I am sorry, I really am.” The Lieutenant whispers, mopping his bruised face. “So sorry.”

The kind voice soon goes away. They never last.

 

They man they take him to is not-as-old. He is a different breed, a different generation, filled with liberal views and a youthful zeal. But his eyes are grave when they see his face. He pales to the color of snow on a black tree branch, translucent and melting.

“Jesus Christ, you’re alive.”

These words mean nothing. He might as well not speak English at all. But the General glares at him and he nods, syrupy-slow. His mouth is gummy inside, eyes tacky with tears.

“How the _hell_ —Rogers saw you fall. He saw you fall.” A pause. “I am so goddamned sorry.”

What does it mean?

“Stark.” The General warns, cutting off whatever stream of words that threaten to bubble forth. “His arm.”

The man composes himself.

“Right, come on then. Sit. I have to take your measurements. Good God, I can’t believe it. We thought you were dead.”

He does not know what that means but the General nudges him forward so he sits down in the chair, back pressed against the leather cushions and it’s the second nicest thing he’s felt since the Lieutenant cleaned his face. He lets out a soft moan which the Engineer translates to pain and says quickly, “Maybe we shouldn’t. Sarge looks like he’s about to drop dead.”

The General’s lips twist as though he finds the statement amusing.

“So the man’s lost a little weight.” The General dismisses. “He’s been through hell.”

“He’s practically skin and bones!”

“Guess Russian cuisine didn’t agree with him.”

“The Russians had him?”

He cants his head at the tone. The Engineer is in pain. He cannot figure out why. Nobody has hurt him; nobody has hit him. The Engineer-is-important.

“Found him at the bottom of the ravine, right where Rogers said he’d be.”

He wants to hear more about this Rogers person but the General does not oblige. The Engineer falls quiet in sullen remorse but his fingers are nimble as they trace the stump of his left arm and press down, seeking bone. He does not make a sound. It is uncomfortable but the General is unhappy. He does not want to be the fuse that lights the powder keg. He sits still as strange belts and hoops are attached to him.

“Gonna fix you up good. You'll be dancing in no time.” The Engineer says rapidly.

He looks at his left arm. It does not move to his commands and it is hard to the touch but it is unmistakably an arm. He never realized that he was supposed to have two. He thought the honor was reserved for men like the General, the Lieutenant or the Engineer who-are-important.

“Woah, woah, woah, where are you taking him?”

The General ignores the Engineer.

“How long until the arm is ready?”

“Two days.” The Engineer replies. “But you can’t possibly consider surgery in this condition.”

“Son, you know the game. You are here at my behest. If you don’t think you can do it, say the word and we’ll find someone who can.”

The Engineer tears at his hair in frustration. “Where would you even find the doctors to operate on him?”

“You let me worry about that. Just hold up your end of the bargain.”

With a nod, the General dismisses the Engineer.

 

“Keep him quiet. We don’t want Stark snooping around.”

He blinks, not understanding. A nurse takes his hand delicately and jams a needle in the crook of his elbow. He watches the clear liquid flush into his arm.

Then he is placed in a box. Discarded like a corpse. It is dark and he slaps the lid clumsily, wanting to be let out. The drug has paralyzed his limbs but his mind is still clear. It tells him that this is wrong. There should be light. The arm sits heavy on his chest and he panics.

 

“Well shit, he shit himself.”

A man laughs meanly as he climbs out of his grave. The air is cleaner outside. It always is, he notices.

“Gawd Kolbert, wash him off before the General sees.”

“Come on Soldier, let’s hit the showers.”

He doesn’t understand what ‘showers’ is but the man clearly wants him to do it. He has learned to listen to the men with shiny bits on their shoulders. Important men. He shuffles forward shyly but not unwillingly. Everyone else jeers and points at the dark stains at the seat of his pants but when Kolbert says, “better clean that up too.” to the coffin, he is met by a chorus of groans and a rebellious, “the eggs better toilet train him or I might just shoot him myself.”

“Don’t pay attention to them.” The man orders, his expression black. He is taken to a damp room. He struggles. He does not want to go back into his cell. “Strip.” And he complies clumsily, his shirt getting caught in the prosthetic and Kolbert has to cut him out. He has no idea why his heart beats rabbit fast as the knife gets too close to his chest or why Kolbert apologizes as he disposes his soiled clothing. “Here, let me.” Kolbert says, gently tugging at the straps binding the arm to his shoulder. “Better huh. Awful brave of you to volunteer for this.”

The words are coming too hard, too fast. He doesn’t understand.

After the shower, they give him drugs. More drugs. He-hates-drugs.

He is cut open. His gut clenches when a short man, the Doctor, shoves a fist inside and peels back his skin like a banana.

“Ssssst,” he moans. “James Barnes... Sergeant... 107th...”

“What the fuck?!” The Engineer exclaims.

The General overrules him.

“Proceed.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Doctor,” The General asks in a calm, confident voice. “How is he?”

“His vitals are strong.” Something clamps down on his spine. His legs go numb. “He feels no discomfort.”

He feels nothing.

The Engineer sputters.

“No discomfort, sir, you are joking.”

“I do not joke about things like these. What would I have to gain by skewing the results?”

“He’s a _person_ you German scumbag.”

“Correction, I am Swiss.”

“Let the man do his work Stark.”

He closes his eyes and he opens them. He is awake then he is not. He is on his stomach, on his side and on his back. He feels pain, he cannot feel his legs. He cannot move his arms. Fear is the furthest thing from his mind.

He wakes up. He is sick. The drugs make-him-sick. He wants to puke but he knows the General will be displeased. He must keep the General happy.

It hurts. He wants to get up. He lifts a hand. Another follows.

“The procedure is a success.” The Doctor pronounces with a note of pride.

Someone touches his arm. He does not want to be touched. The person is not the General, the Doctor or the Engineer. He lashes out and strikes the man in the face. The cheekbones collapse.

There are shouts, hands restraining him, hands on his legs, his body, his arm and he throws them all off. He doesn’t think about the pain. He doesn’t think about the way his legs move a second after he wants them to. Something wet trickles down his back. He wants to cry.

“Settle down.”

He sits back automatically because the General-is-important.

“Good.”

He feels sick.

 

“Can you hear me? Barnes?”

“Please do not refer to him by that name.”

“It’s his _name_. What else am I going to call him?”

“The Russians called him soldier. So why not the Winter Soldier?”

The Engineer laughs. It’s not a happy sound.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. We’re all going to hell. Barnes, how do you feel?”

He has no idea how to answer that. He can feel nothing. It’s uncomfortable feeling nothing. He says, “It does not hurt.”

The Engineer appears distressed.

“He means the arm.” The Doctor says impatiently. “How is its function?”

“I do not understand.”

“What the hell did they do to you?”

The General gives him a warning glance do-not-answer.

“Happy?” The General says to the Engineer. “Now for a little test. Let’s see here... how about her?” His finger lands on a nurse. A tray falls from her nerveless fingers as she lets out a small scream. The General makes eye contact with him. “Make it quick.”

He stands up.

The Engineer screams, “Stop!”

The woman is tall, almost as tall as him. She has brown eyes and curly brown hair. She has clear skin and a small mole under her left eye. She is afraid of him. He does not want to kill her.

“No.” He says calmly.

The General turns to the Engineer.

“The Russians gave us a machine. I think you might be interested to look at it.”

 

The first time—the first time? The first time? Is it the first time? He nearly bites his tongue in half.

The General tests him with different people.

“This man is a terrorist.”

“He killed a cop.”

“He killed a boy.”

“She killed her lover.”

“She stole.”

“Rapist.”

“Thief.”

“Murderer.”

“Nobody.”

The General lifts the chin of the shivering wreck crouched on the floor.

“No one’s going to miss him son. No one will tell.”

“Wipe him.”

“Wipe him.”

 

“ _Wipe him_.”

 

“Your machine failed.” The General says idly, eyeing the parts and machinery scattered around the room.

The Engineer bristles.

“I built it to your specifications. If it didn’t work, that’s your problem. Not mine.”

“Stark, we are on the verge of a breakthrough. You can either keep up or walk away.”

The Engineer looks at him.

“I think we both know it’s too late for that.”

 

“Wipe him.”

 

He retches.

He can’t forget the look in her eyes when her blood splashes over his hands. The blood seeps under the metal plates and the nail bed. He tries to wash it off and then decides to tear it off.

He doesn’t realize he has hit one of his guards until he does and he goes screaming into the chair, a leather glove shoved between his teeth and then—

 

“Again.”

 

“Wipe him.”

 

“Again.”

 

“Again.”

 

“Again.”

 

The scene has changed. He is no longer in the Engineer’s workshop. He is in a circular room, sterile lights, one exit and the chair.

People bustle around him as they strap him into gear. A file lands on his lap. He feels disconcerted when it opens up to a picture of a man who smiles brightly at things out of sight. The Colonel who has replaced the Officer who replaced the General looms over him.

“Your next target.”

 

“Thank you for your service.”

 

“Jesus Christ.” The Engineer says when he sees him. His brows crease in concern. “Who are you?” He demands rudely to the Colonel. “I thought ol’ Pollack was in charge of this op.”

“Colonel Thaddeus Ross. You answer to me now.”

They are hustled downstairs. Men follow, their boots loud on the wooden steps.

“What the hell did he do to the arm?”

“That’s why we came to you.”

The Engineer narrows his eyes.

“It looks like he tried to tear it off.”

“You would be wrong.” The Colonel counters. “The Winter Soldier functions within normal parameters. However, he encountered difficulties in his last operation. That’s why we came to you.”

“Because I’m the best.” The Engineer sighs as though repeating a tired old line. He asks, “How are you feeling?”

The Soldier does not answer.

 

He runs. No one can catch him. He feels a terrible thrill when he enters the light at the end of the hallway, turns left and vaults over a woman who shrieks in terror.

He must get out. He understands doors better. There are rooms behind them. He can simply go through. But the windows are strange. The picture in them stranger. He has never known such green. A vibrant color that sing of spring.

He skids to a stop when he knocks over blocks and makes the tiny-not-man cry. The shrill sobbing tugs at his chest. He kneels down, helpless as the boy’s face flushes red. Red is a bad color. Red-is-wrong. He puts the blocks back as they were. It’s a simple matter of rearranging them side-by-side. The boy sniffles, gnawing on a chubby fist. He reaches out and touches his arm.

The Engineer stops in the doorway.

“Jim, please. Don’t hurt him.”

Rosy fingers latch on to the grooves in his arm. The boy takes a hammer and raps the metal with it. Everyone else flinches at the sound.

“Who is he?” He asks, voice hoarse with disuse.

“Anthony—Tony.” The Engineer answers, stumbling over the syllables. “His name is Anthony Stark.”

He feels a pinprick at the back of his neck.

He takes care not to knock over Tony’s blocks this time.

 

In New York, they don’t give him a gun. They don’t give him a knife.

Instead, they give him a needle and stitch him into his suit. They cut his hair, gel it back with pomade and tells him to smile.

They bring in a girl who teaches him how to kiss, how to wink and how to make a woman laugh. She takes him to a club upstate and he walks in with confident strides and curled lips. He sits at a bar and asks for whisky-straight even though they never told him to. They never taught him that.

The Target takes a seat beside him, buys him a drink and rubs her thumb against the inseams of his tailored pants. She calls him a charming boy and asks him home to which he says, why not, knocking back another glass.

The Target lies that she has never done this before. She calls him again, a charming boy, her charming boy, and tucks dollar bills in his jacket.

She loosens the buttons on his shirt, drinks from his mouth, his chest and his stomach. She takes a pill for everyone he does and gasps when he sticks a needle in her thigh, clenching tight around him even as the light in her eyes dies.

He comes to the salt in his tears and the floral scent of her still dark hair.

The Soldier takes the needle and crushes it in his fist. He throws it in the toilet and keeps flushing until he can stand again.

 

He is looking at a clock and he moves-too-slow that people bump into him until he is forced against a wall. He goes to a news stand where a fat man smokes his cigarettes by a window and he asks, “What is the date?” and clearly, this is not the strangest question the man has been asked because the man simply taps the top of the newspaper which says ‘August 26, 1971’.

The 19th amendment has been passed. Women now have the right to vote.

It’s over seventeen years since his last remembered date.

There is something wrong with him.

 

He goes home. But there is no Steve.

“Can I help you pal?”

The man in front of him is not Steve. He has the wrong color, the wrong voice.

“You’re not...”

Scoffing, the man closes the door in-his-face.

 

The Colonel finds him, of course he does. He has his men aim their guns at him.

He bears his teeth, does not raises his hands. Does not surrender because that is a sign-of-weakness and he is not weak. Bucky will die before he lets them take him again.

“I won’t go back.”

 

“ _Wipe him_.”

 

The Doctor sometimes stares at him with something akin to pride. But this pride is warped. He does not want it. He does not want the attention it brings. A technician brings him a picture of his bones lined-in-white. He shudders and waits for the pain.

 

“I’m not doing this anymore.” The Engineer says sharply, rubbing a five o’ clock shadow. “I created Shield to protect people not...” he waves a hand in an impotent gesture. “Not this, whatever this is.”

“Do you think I do this because I like hurting people?”

The Engineer rolls his eyes.

“Could have fooled me.”

“Barnes joined the army because he wanted to serve his country. He volunteered so that we don’t need to send our boys to the front. So they can grow up and become men.”

“Is this what that is?” The Engineer laughs. “Have you seen the news lately?”

 

“Wipe him.”

The bit slides easily into his mouth.

 

“Who are you?”

There is a boy at the top of the stairs. He thinks he might know this boy, bright-eyed and skinny with flailing limbs. It’s a different boy, another boy, but yes, he thinks he recognizes this boy. He is looking at himself.

The Boy cocks his head. “How come you’re not at breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” He asks wistfully. The word echoes within him. He wants to reach out and touch how solid the Boy is. But his arm has been laid open and the Engineer has ordered him to stay. In the matters of his arm’s efficiency, even the Colonel differs to the Engineer expertise. He stays put as the Boy wanders near, walking with little skips that remind him of the things that dart through the sky.

“Oh, oh.” The Boy says when he sees his arm, all the wires and gears in-the-light. “You can’t move.”

The Boy gives him a sympathetic look but he does not understand it. Even less when the Boy runs back up the stairs and comes back with a plate of something warm-and-moist. He shoves a fork in his-right-hand and demands he eats.

The first bite is so sweet he nearly gags on it. Nearly. He shovels the food in his mouth as the Boy prattles on about schoolwork and how he’s going to be the greatest inventor ever.

“I’ll build a better arm than that.” He says in scorn and the Soldier shudders, his guts clench-with-dread. The boy peers at him closely, “Hey mister, what’s your name?”

“Tony! Get away from there!”

The Boy scampers off, caught.

The Engineer takes his plate away. His hands are shaking.

 

“You can’t keep doing this. I’m married. I have a son.”

“So get a better lock.” The Colonel says, nonchalant.

“That’s not the point!”

The Engineer bites off something rude and stubbornly turns his head, tinkering with his arm until something sparks and a rush of electricity moves down his spine.

“Sorry.” The Engineer says, chagrined.

“It does not hurt.” He replies.

 

The Engineer is older and older every time they meet.

“Maybe you’re getting younger.” The Engineer jokes, grey-in-beard.

He notices that Colonel Ross is too, no-longer-young. The soldiers and officers who have decorated his side are now gone. He never sees the Doctor anymore. He does not wonder why.

 

He is on a bed, his trousers loosened, his thighs spread.

The Mark gives him a too-smug look and pulls the tie on his neck.

He chokes but his limbs are leaden. He stays pliant and still as the man slides a hand up his shirt, plucks at his nipple and sucks on his tongue. He tastes like whiskey, salt and sour meat. His phone rings and he goes to pick it up, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

A frown later, the Mark hands the Soldier the phone.

"It's for you."

What a strange sentence. He has nothing. He deserves nothing. There is nothing in it for him.

Stillness turns to static. The mouth-breather, the pervert at the end of the line says, "guns not butter." 

The Mark falls with a gurgle, an expression of neat surprise on his sagging face. 

He cleans his knife on the man’s shirt and leaves.

 

“Again.”

 

“Shit.”

“Dad, c’mon, you promised!” The Boy bellows wildly through the house.

“Can’t you control your offspring?” The Colonel demands.

“Can you control yours?” The Engineer spits back but it’s too late, the door swings open and the Boy jumps down the stairs to the bottom step.

The Soldier's body lurches, tense until he realizes that the Boy is safe. The Boy simply wants attention and a bit of care.

The Boy’s eyes scan the crowd. He understands nothing. Knows only that his father and strange men are standing in his father’s workshop. Selfish to the point of ignorance. Ignorance means that the Boy-is-safe.

“It’s my birthday.” The Boy begs.

“Stark.” The Colonel says sharply. He has run out of patience.

The Soldier hurriedly puts a hand in his pocket.

“For you.”

He hands a boy a pen. It’s something a target tucked in his pockets. An exchange for his services. He does not understand. But it is his and he cannot keep it. So he will give it away to the Boy whom he will keep safe.

The Engineer tightens the hand on his shoulder and the Boy exclaims “wow” because he is young enough to believe a gift from a total stranger.

“What do you say Tony?” The Engineer says in a strained voice.

The Boy beams. “Thanks mister!” And placated, he runs off long enough for the Colonel’s men to secure the doors.

 

Later, the Engineer whispers, “Thanks Barnes.”

 

The Colonel-trusts-him to keep his arm in an acceptable condition. The maid and the woman who live with the Engineer knows him on sight and it causes him worry because people-who-know die. The General has died. The Officer is gone. He has no illusions that the Colonel will last.

The Engineer declares his work finished and asks, “Anything else I should know about?” but he can’t explain. He hasn’t the words to explain. No one has taught him these words. They are in his brain rattling around, mixed with different things like boozing-and-sex. His hand comes up and taps his collar. Taking the Engineer’s hand, he slowly places it on the bone.

The Engineer swallows and presses down on the spot. He finds something hard, something long, something that shouldn’t-be-there.

The Soldier barely flinches when the knife digs in.

“What is it?” He asks in a monotone when a tweezers drops a blinking light in a glass of water.

The Engineer sinks down into a seat next to him.

“Your future.”

 

The Engineer asks him, “Do you know who you are?”

He replies, “I don’t know.”

The correct answer is, 'I don’t care.'

 

Everyone grows old. The Boy grows not-old.

The Boy comes back from school in the height of summer. His skin is bronzed, glowing with health. Angry eyes only for the Engineer. He yells, he shouts, he breaks things—he is a difficult child. But sometimes he is quiet. Sometimes he likes to sit and watch his father work.

The Soldier does not have his arm. He used it to. He does not remember what he used it for. But his left sleeve is empty and the Engineer must make him a new one.

“The thing was outdated anyway.” The Engineer mutters.

 

The Engineer likes to talk to him late at night.

“Do you remember Steve?”

A flash of gold, red, white and blue.

“No.”

“Do you ever wonder what they’re hiding from you?”

“No.”

“Just like that?”

 

The Boy likes to speak him in the morning.

“So, you Fed?”

“No.”

“Ooh, I know. You’re a spy.”

He wrinkles his forehead. No, he is not the Spy. He is the Soldier.

“This sucks.” The Boy exclaims, throwing an empty can in the corner. “Wanna go watch a film?”

 

“You need to—“ Are those the words? He rarely has to speak anything they-don’t-teach. “—spend time with him.” He stumbles over the tone-and-inflections. “—he-needs-you.”

“He doesn’t.” The Engineer bites off. He shrinks in his seat. Softening, the Engineer continues, “He doesn’t want to spend time with me.”

He frowns at the Engineer, not comprehending.

As the Engineer turns to leave, his hand shoots out and grab’s the other man’s arm. Surprised, the Engineer flounders and strikes him across the face. The Soldier’s head rocks backwards but he does not let go. Slowly, he unravels his fingers. He says, “Try.”

 

He staggers into the basement with a slug in his gut. Every time he breathes, blood dribbles from his mouth. He wipes it off and winces at the spot of red, smeared onto his wrist. It drips and drips-and-drips into his lap, soaked into his pants.

 

“How long are you planning to keep him?”

“As long as he will serve.”

“He—he doesn’t _age_.”

“You knew what you were getting into.”

“No, no I didn’t. Because if I did...”

“Stark. You are here because the Soldier remembers you. Once we get that sorted out...”

“His name is James Barnes.”

“James Barnes is dead.”

 

“You’re back.” The Boy greets him breathlessly. “Oh man I wish you were there to see it. Did you know? I—“

 

The Colonel tells him that he is the greatest weapon the world has ever known.

“The atom bombs, you blow ‘em up and they’re gone. But you.” The Colonel’s eyes rove speculatively. “God knows we could use more of you.”

 

His line of sight is blocked.

It does not matter if the other man is not a target. Under the cover fire of his men, he shoots the Target between his eyes. The Target slumps to the ground, a puppet cut from its strings. His handlers will be pleased. It is another threat eliminated.

He feels nothing.

He should feel nothing.

 

The Boy is no-longer-young but he is not-yet-old.

He stumbles downstairs, a tape in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. The Soldier feels that he should at least feign disapproval but pats the Boy on the back and gently places him beside the work table. All the while the Boy chatters, “You’re him. You’re real. All this time, I thought I was seeing things. The pictures. They don’t have pictures of you anymore. But my dad. My dad kept the tapes. You’re – _hic_ – you're Bucky Barnes.”

“Tony!” The Boy turns to the Engineer.

“This is Bucky Barnes.”

The Soldier tilts his head. The name means nothing.

“Tony, please.”

“You’ve been keeping here. Like, like a fucking – _hic_ – experiment.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?!”

The Boy turns to him, stricken.

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Tony, Tony, listen. Listen! There is no time. This is very important.” The Engineer swallows and it looks like it falls straight to his gut. “I’m going away for a while. There are going to be people, asking for me. Tell them the truth. You don’t know anything.”

“But—!”

“Tony, Tony!” The Engineer shakes the Boy. “Tell them nothing. Trust no one.”

“Dad, what the hell—“

“I'm proud of you Tony. I know I didn't... I'm proud of you. Remember that.”

“Dad? Dad!”

 

The Engineer shoves a piece of paper in his hand. A number scrawled hastily in pen. As he is strapped in the seat, he can see Tony run out to the lawn, watching the car start and drive off.

“You need to find Peggy Carter.” The Engineer makes a sharp turn on the road’s end, his knuckles white across the steering wheel. “She already knows most of it. Call that number; do not go back to your handlers.”

“Peggy Carter.” The Soldier recognizes the name. A woman, brown hair, bright eyes, red lips and—

The first person he killed was a woman.

“Of the British Intelligence, she’ll help you.”

“With what?”

“You once told me that my big mouth was going to get me killed one day. Looks like you were telling the truth.”

“I don’t remember that.”

He doesn’t.

“Your government lied to you Sarge. They’re playing you like John Lennon played his guitar.”

“I don’t know what that is.” He said haltingly. His eyes followed the scenery outside. “Turn the car around.” His heart began to thud in his ear. “Please, turn the car around. Stop!”

But the Engineer keeps driving.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes; your friends called you Bucky. Your best friend was Steve Rogers and you both died in the war.” The Soldier stills. “I’m sorry.”

A truck hits the side of the car.

In the smoke, the Soldier extracts the Engineer through the passenger door, pulling at the seat belt until it snaps in his hand. The Engineer chokes and leans heavily on him. As he is laid across the asphalt, he rummages through his pockets and pulls out bits of metal caught on string. They read, ‘Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes’.

“I’ve been thinking.” The Engineer says whisper-soft. “That maybe... we should have focused more on helping people instead.”

A man gets out of the truck. The Soldier hears his footsteps across the din. With a shuddering gasp, the Soldier pulls out a gun.

“I’m so sorry.” The Engineer murmurs. “I wish...”

 

 

 

Tony ignores the condolences from well-wishers as he looks down at the coffin. The coroner’s report said that he had died from an automobile accident resulting from substance abuse. He knows that’s a lie. His father was _sober_ when he got in that car. In the morning, the G-men had been all over their house.

They took everything. He's got lawyers on it but he's not going to hold his breath. 

Obie squeezes his shoulders reassuringly as he greets another one of his dad’s _old friends_. Sneering, he was about to sneak his mother’s vodka from her purse when he catches sight of a familiar face.

A staggering figure drops something down on a patch of grass. He snatches it up like a magpie and sees that they’re dog tags.

“Hey, you dropped this! Hey!” The man begins to move. “Wait!” He pushes through a pair of startled women. “Excuse me.” He bounces off a board member who bristles about the follies of youth. “Pardon me, have you considered losing weight? Wait!”

Startled, the man looks back and their eyes meet.

“Bucky!”


	2. The Little Drummer Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winter Soldier Warning: In case the tags weren't clear

“Good morning Soldier.”

He is awake. It’s 6:45 Pakistani Standard Time. He’s been tracking the sun since 5:15. He lays on the twin bed and its scratchy sheets, furbished with a soldier’s pay. His nails scrape the loose threads when the Target sucks his mouth. The Target is late.

He makes a show of waking. He uncurls his limbs. His movements become syrupy slow. The thin scruff around the Target’s chin rides along his shorn skin and he— _likes_ how they fit together. He— _kisses_ the Target back and he is stuck. He is paralyzed. He thinks of how easy it would be to pin the Target down and snap-his-neck.

It would be kindness but Command wants to make a statement. The Soldier will please Command. Command-is-important.

The Target leans away.

“Ugh.” He teases. “Morning breath.”

He licks his lips, makes himself desirable though he is not. His skin is pale. His hair is limp. He is skeletal but the Target’s hand gropes him from throat to cock. He is soft. His nipples are pointed. He does not want to be on-his-back. “You heading out?”

“Mmhmm, politics.” The Target deflects. “You know how it is.”

He nods as though he understands.

He gets up as soon as the Target leaves.

He is shaking.

 

Command folds his newspaper. Two killed in a drive-by shooting. No one has been arrested. He can still smell the gunpowder in the air, the blood on his face when he delivered seven grams of lead.

“Well done.”

He looks away.

 

“Good morning Soldier.”

They dig him out of his metal berth. His breathing peaks. There is snow. He is on ice. He must be. His arms are restrained. Heads loom over him like jagged cliffs and he is still. The cold metal sticks to his flesh and it burns. They dump water on him and it covers him with a glaze of frost. He trembles. He breathes. He blinks. He is back in the chair and he screams.

He doesn’t remember what he screams.

“Blood pressure rising.”

“A reaction?”

“No. Other readings are within normal parameters.”

“Start him on Midazolam and secobarbital.”

He’s awake. It’s been a long time since he was last awake. He has no concept of time but he reads old fear in the guards’ eyes and the graying hairs in his handler’s beard.

He is cold. His ass feels raw and stretched open like something’s been jammed up inside. He snaps his knees closed and a technician jumps. He does not know what happened to him but his stomach cramps painfully. He wants to cry. He wants to die. He struggles to put a name to the foul feeling between his ribs.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?”

“Maybe it’s your face.” A man says snidely, his uniform unmarked. Smoke pressed neatly in the seams.

“Soldier.” The handler says warily.

He chokes out, “Ready to comply.”

“No good.” A technician shakes his head.

The cuffs loosen. A syringe empties into his veins.

 

“Wipe him.”

 

“James Buchanan Barnes. 3-.”

“Again.”

“Three.”

“Wipe him.”

“Three, three, three.”

 

“Good morning Soldier.”

 

“Good morning Soldier.”

 

“Good morning.”

 

“That’s not how the human brain works.” A technician whines. “You can’t just switch it on and off.”

There are words he is required to remember. He does not know what-they-mean. He thinks that they might be important but he does not think. He is a soldier and soldiers do not think.

“The Russians gave us a gift. They have their Black Widows. We have a Soldier. He will be the first of Hydra. He will endure.”

Command is not a big man. He is soft-spoken and personable. Polite with an undercurrent of steel. No gold gilds his lapels. His suits are free of ribbons and bits of metal. He prefers milk over wine. Spengler over Nietzche. And late at night, when the maid is gone and his mansion sits empty on top of Capitol Hill. The specters of his estranged daughter and wife far away, he speaks to the soldier and sometimes he thinks he understands. In another life, he might have even admired Command and followed him out of loyalty than the sparkling blue inside of his head. But the Soldier is a thing and things are broken, lost, fixed and remade. It is irrelevant if he is capable of independent thought and processes. He could take a sickle and beat it with a hammer and it would mean nothing. He is nothing. The trees outside and the deep sky are nothing to him.

His fingers, flesh and blood, nails bitten down to the quick, tinged blue where the technicians did not scrub hard enough, beat against the metal to a rhythm he cannot know. Something coded deep in the flesh under a metal awning. In that place, in that time, in the chair when the electrodes cackle with voices real and imagined, resignation bleaching him inside out, he remembers. He remembers he must forget because he is the Soldier. Command has asked it of him. Because no one came to find him. Not the Engineer nor the Boy. Not the Colonel, the General, the Lieutenant or the Captain. The bit slides in his mouth.

“Wipe him.”

 

“Good morning Soldier.”

 

His voice is a thick slurry.

“Ready to comply.”

 

He fires. The gun kicks his shoulder and the car spins, tires blown out, before crashing into a flower shops. Screaming begins and he ducks under an awning just as two figures stumble out of the car.

The girl, the spider, throws herself on top of the package. He takes the shot.

Time slows to a crawl when she springs to her feet with a dancer’s grace. Face smudged, stomach bleeding. He knows her—he must know her. He must know the girl who won’t-stay-down. The sunlight colors her red and gold, green and blue. She takes a knife to him and it bounces harmlessly off his metal shoulder.

He knew her once. When she was a boy and smelled like blood and incense and ten Hail Marys prayed over his head.

There is no forgiveness.

 

“Where is the Engineer?” He asks suddenly.

The technician is young, nervous, clean-shaven and blond. His eyes hold none of the fanaticism or pride. Just fear. Only fear. And he wants to know if the Engineer made it out alive. The Engineer is important. The Colonel thought-him-important. Maybe Command will find him important too.

“What the hell is he talking about?”

Memories are bad. He is not supposed to remember. Memories lead to wipes. Wipes are drain on resources. Command will be displeased. Command is important. He cannot disappoint Command. He cannot. He cannot.

“Stark.”

The Boy. He remembers the Boy with the plastic hammer promising to build him a new arm. He is dark-haired dark-eyed on moment before brightening to gold and blue-glass. The Soldier blinks, heart racing, and the moment is lost. He is pushed in the chair. He is strapped down. The weight of his arm keeps him down.

“Wipe him.”

He screams but the facts are too deeply ingrained. He does not know what he is meant to forget. He is Alice tumbling down a rabbit hole. The Engineer and the Boy are as much a part of him as his arm is. As Command is. As the General and the Colonel are. The only constant is pain.

He does not know anything else and what he doesn’t know, he cannot forget. He screams around the mouth guard. He remembers the first person he ever killed. He remembers the grooves of rust in his arm. The man through the lens of his scope. The Engineer who bled out from under his hands.

 

“Wipe him.”

 

He crashes from the chemical high of adrenaline, sinking on himself until his bones grate in his ears. Command stares at him with affected disappointment and he feels small. Command is old. He needs help. He cannot do this alone.

The Soldier must help. Only the Soldier can help. The Soldier is a failure.

“What a waste.” A technician comments, wiping the inside of his elbows.

“What?” A soldier grunts. He has his gun trained on him.

“A mouth like his.”

“Better not let anyone catch you saying that.”

“Who’s going to tell? You?”

 

“ _Wipe him._ ”

 

He is pushed against the sink. Forehead against the mirror and he reads terror in his blown eyes.

His handler kicks his legs apart, presses his fingers against the perineum before delving in, slow and lewd, dragged out as though he’s trying to find the evidence of their last fuck. He wants to cut his ears off so he doesn’t have to hear the wet sounds. He squirms. Whimpers stutter in his throat. He shies away from the searching hands but never out of reach.

“Jesus Christ B. Can’t you keep it in your pants for just one goddamned second?”

“Calm your tits Rumlow. This won’t take long. My baby needs me.”

“Pierce needs you.”

“Cripes, take a smoke Rum. That’s an order.”

The door closes behind them with a slam.

Something is inserted in him. Inside of him. Bigger than fingers and he instinctively widens his feet to accommodate. The handler’s tone turns from vaguely appreciative to degrading. Every breath is punched out of him in jackhammer thrust. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Neither does the man in the mirror. The sink breaks under his grip. His palms tear wide around the cracks and his handler pushes his bloodied hand around his soft cock.

His asshole stretches and tears and he swallows back the burn in his throat. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know which year it is; he doesn’t know what is _happening_. A hand lands on his ass and his handler sneers, “yeah baby, remember me? Got so wet when you saw me.”

He breathes through his mouth. He does not answer. He cannot answer. He cannot remember. He trembles as his newly defrosted knees threaten to cave in.

The handler spends himself with a grunt. It’s messy. It runs out in stained streaks on the back of his thighs.

He is bent over, folded in half. Blood pounds in his ears.

The handler slaps him on the ass.

“There you go. Clean as a whistle. Missed you baby.”

The man outside cannot meet his eyes. He is cleaned to specifications. His hair is damp but that cannot be helped. He is pushed in the chair just as Command arrives.

“Wipe him.”

 

“Good morning Soldier.”

“Ready to comply.”

A file lands on his lap. The ink-on-paper hurts his eyes but he cannot turn away. His head is screwed in place. He reads Steve Rogers and the seizure is enough to lift his spine off the damp plastic on the chair.

 

“Again.”

 

“Sir.”

“Is there a problem?”

The technician swallows.

“Notes from previous operations indicates faults in the conditioning. I am _concerned_ that the wipe will not hold up under the strain.”

Command smiles. Face smoothing out.

“A little poetic justice goes a long way.”

Command is calm, unhurried in a way that means his secretary is frantically searching for him upstairs. He has his hands in his pockets. A tweed suit. His favorite. Travels once a year to Saville Row to get it tailored to his softening gut.

His breathing levels out.

“Good morning Soldier.”

“Ready to comply.”

The Command smiles.

He relaxes. He has pleased the Command. He has done something right.

A file lands on his lap. Supplementary instructions follow.

He feels brittle as he lifts the pages like he might accidentally cut himself on the diamond edges and bleed to death. The Mission is another soldier. Why do they not wish to work with him? But he is only a soldier. He follows orders.

“Kill him.”

“No.”

Surprise registers across their faces.

He squirms. He cowers. His only lot is to comply. Denial is not in his vocabulary. The deviation makes the technicians nervous, his handler mean. Deviation drops Command into quiet contemplation.

 

He protests—

“No.”

 

“He betrayed you.”

Command smiles kindly and digs the words in deeper.

“He left you. He could have come back for you. Anytime. But he did not. We raised you from that godforsaken place. You are our gift to mankind. Open your eyes Soldier. It is time to wake up.”

His teeth begin to chatter. He cannot look. He does not have to look. Command is already there.

“Good morning Soldier.”

 

They throw him under a shower. Under a freezing spray which makes his skin tighten from shock. His hair is cut. Brown curls float down the drain. His face is shaved. And his dick. And they—

There is disconnect. An error in the continuity. He blinks. He is in clothes. Light, cotton, civilian wear. He’s only ever glimpsed it on Command. It’s soft and he runs his fingers over them, feeling around the buttons and the skin beneath.

His name is Robert Green. He is a level 3 agent on probation. He majored in psychology. He does historic reenactments on weekends. He is twenty-seven and his life fits on a single page.

He drowns Susan Brenning in her sink while she’s applying red lipstick. He holds her under unil she stops struggling, until she stops pretending to be dead. He holds her under until her pulse peters out under his flesh-and-blood hand. When her phone rings, his handler coughs into the receiver and calls her in sick.

The Janitor receives him with an irate glare and tells him that he’s late but he cannot be. He is on time while the Mission, Steve Rogers, born July 4th, 1918, Captain America, _Stevie_ , is early. He breaks off with a gasp, barely manages to catch himself trembling and says with flat eyes, the Mission is early.

“There’s blood! Jesus! Is he sick? Is it contagious?”

“For fuck’s sake Sitwell. We’ll stick a tampon in him. It’ll be like a little cock up his slutty ass.”

“This isn’t funny Beyer!”

His handler cackles.

“Sure is.”

Fingers are stuck inside of him, scissoring him open and he can feel the wetness on the back of his thighs sliding down.

Discomforted, the Janitor swallows and looks away. “He’s a weapon.”

“Well then you better make sure I don’t accidentally sic the weapon on you.”

The handler slaps him on his ass again. More wetness leaks out of him.

A small device is fitted into his ear. It will allow his handler to monitor him remotely. The uniform stretches across his chest but is loose on the hips. It feels wrong. It’s like putting on a mask except there is no mask. The mask is him.

Outside, a balding man in his late forties cuts him with a look. His ID reads P. Coulson. Phil Coulson.

“I thought we were using Miss. Brenning.” He tells the Janitor.

“She called in sick.”

“She can’t call in sick.”

“Well she did. We can’t exactly have a sick nurse.”

“But a male nurse?”

“You wanted a psyche eval. We didn’t have anyone on hand; I had to pull him from LA.”

“You ready?”

Static crackles in his ear.

“ _Extraction is en route_.”

He nods subtly.

“Of course.”

There’s a syringe in his pocket filled with poison that can kill a man under a minute. He is to give it to the Mission upon waking. He opines that Hydra are dramatic shits.

The Mission is six-feet, two-inches. He’s waking. He has good color, good set of lungs, good heart, and the information filters through his brain like camera flashes as his synapses fire. The Mission is perfect. He has a passing resemblance to Command in that they are both blond and blue-eyed. He does not know why this is relevant but the distinction is important. The Mission would not. Never.

The radio starts.

Dodgers game, May 25, 1941. He knows this because he’s been briefed and can repeat it verbatim as though reading off a page he’s perused a thousand times. He walks into a table as his reality shifts. His center of gravity has been thrown off. He feels lighter. Buoyant. He doesn’t nearly mind the scene outside the window which is fake, the room is fake and the sunshine is a yellow bulb in a box.

The communicator spits static in his ear.

His mission.

But when he looks into the Mission’s open eyes, he stills. Fingers drop away from the syringe in his pocket as the Mission sits up, stands up and walks towards him.

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

This is not the reaction of a man who’s been held in ice for seventy years. The Mission’s voice is yearning across a suspension in time. A place only they remember but cannot because the Soldier does not exist. The Soldier is nothing.

“ _Soldier, your mission_.”

“I thought you were dead. I thought...”

He blinks. He remembers this conversation.

As before, he does nothing. Mission fills in the blanks.

“You fell Bucky, you... I’m dead aren’t I?”

Mission is alive. Mission believes himself to be dead because he believes the Soldier is dead. The Soldier is not dead. What is alive?

It takes a moment for him to register that the Mission’s reaction is positive. The Mission is happy to see him. His arms wrap around the Soldier in an ineffective hold and he resists the urge to place the hand higher on the side of his neck, thumb on his pulse so that the Mission may disable him if the situation requires it. The Soldier breathes into the cotton and sea breeze and does what comes naturally.

He—hugs him back. His body-goes-limp. He does not understand the reaction but he does not dislike it. He doesn’t know why this is happening. Why his body lights up when it’s learned all touches are poisoned. This is inside of him. Something etched on the inside of his skull. It is not something that can be wiped, erased or destroyed.

The Soldier holds the Mission and for once, he does it without the intention of harm. It is something untouched by what his handler has taught him, what his handlers have taught him, what Command has taught him, what the General, the Colonel, the Engineer and the boy taught him. They rub cheek to cheek and the Mission blasphemes religious ideals.

“I thought heaven would be a lot more exciting.” The Mission says, eyes wet. The man tucks himself under the Soldier’s chin. The feeling is good. The Mission is too big to fit but he tries. The soldier stands on his toes and the earpiece crackles to life.

Abort.

The Mission hears it.

“Bucky, what...”

“ _Now Soldier_!”

The Soldier pushes the Mission away like he pushed the girl away. It does not feel right. It-feels-wrong as his handler shouts rapid-fire commands in his ear.

“ _Extraction is on its way. Lose the tail._ ”

He has failed the mission.

He runs.

The Mission follows.

No one thinks to stop them.

 

They barrel through drywall, glass, and a stretch of tarp. There are roughly five thousand street cameras in time square. It is not enough to capture the migration of people. Their presence barely registers under the omniscient glass eye. They will pop up on Facebook feeds, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, eased out of people’s minds.

No one gives a second look at two people running through the crowd. Vendors yell and curse when their wares are upturned, quick to forget when police check their licenses and their bootlegged DVDs. It is the closest thing to privacy they are allowed in a city where everything has changed. Advertisements are blown up on screens seven-stories high. The Mission flinches whenever the colors turn, the signals switch and songs blare. From a corner, he snags the Mission against him until they are pressed chest to back, moving as one as he closes his palms over the Mission’s ears.

The Mission knows something is-not-right. One hand is metal, the other is not. Mission grabs his wrists gently and traces the vein and the blood-stained plates. And he lets him.

“Bucky, what the hell is going on?!”

The inside of his legs are damp. He wants to set fire to his dick and cut his balls off. He now recognizes the feeling as shame. Names it. Owns it. He does not have the time.

When no answer is forthcoming, the Mission’s face creases in concern.

“What’s wrong? Bucky. Where are we?”

He gently prods his brow back into place but he cannot bring back the Mission’s smile. The Mission had a name but he doesn’t want to remember. What he can’t remember cannot be wiped.

The Soldier’s voice creaks like a rusty hinge. There are words crammed against the back of his teeth but he can only spit them out one-by-one, in a jumble, no rhyme or reason to the things he says, things he doesn’t say and the Mission holds his hands.

The year is 2011. The Mission has been asleep for seventy years.

“But Bucky.” Mission says helplessly. “You’re alive.”

He is not Bucky. He doesn’t know who Bucky is. He is the Soldier. It does not matter if he was Bucky. The Soldier is what he must be.

The question is too hard-to-answer. He shakes his head once to clear his thoughts. Synapses fire. He is in pain. He bites down on his tongue. Blood spreads in his mouth. He leans in, hidden against the bulk of the Mission’s broad shoulders. He sniffs once. The Mission smells like salt.

“Trust no one.” And because something-someone tells-him-to. “Hail Hydra.”

The Mission grabs for him but he slips his embrace like sylph. The Mission runs out in the open and is surrounded by cars. People swarm the Mission. The Mission is safe.

The device in his ear sputters.

He is being recalled.

 

“What the fuck did you do? What the hell happened out there?”

The van’s door slides open and the handler’s meaty fist wraps around his collar, pulling him in. He goes willingly-unwillingly. His knees hit the floor but he says nothing. He simply grabs a gun from the handler’s holster and shoots the driver. The driver slumps against the steering wheel without a sound and the handler rolls his tongue back up. His mouth clicks closed and the Soldier sinks down on the seat his opposite.

“Soldier.”

The handler’s eyes widen. He begins to sweat. A fear response. Or arousal. His belly cramps and he knows that it could be both.

“Put the gun down.”

There are words he is required to remember. They remain inside. He doesn’t say them; he doesn’t need to say them. For once, he is free to do as he likes. The handler is not Command. The man has not recited the correct sequence of words. Beyer is a drain on resources and must-be-eliminated.

“Wait don’t.”

Beyer’s left elbow pulls apart with a pop. It’s not enough.

He jams the syringe in Beyer’s ass. Beyer begins to shake. His face purples. His hand latches on the door but can’t get a grip. He claws at the injection site but it was enough. The Soldier leans back and waits.

 

 

 

“—The man who in the room.”

“Bucky.” Steve interrupts, carefully turning over the paper cup in his hand.

Fury raises an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“His name is Bucky.”

“Bucky.” Fury says, tone carefully neutral.

Steve looks up. He’s played politics; he’s been the dancing monkey at everyone’s party. He knows when he is being managed. His mouth stays flat and neutral as Fury presses, “Your best friend Bucky.”

Coulson makes a slight noise of protest, file crumpling in his hands. He seems pained by the proceedings. As though he’d rather be anywhere but here but at the same time, unable to imagine being anywhere else.

“Captain, that man was not Bucky Barnes.”

“He’s been gone for less than two weeks.” Steve replies blankly. “I know him.”

Fury snorts.

“Your friend just infiltrated our headquarters and killed one of our own.”

_Hail Hydra_.

“It was him.” Steve insists.

Fury rubs his eyes.

“We found you in the Arctic. Hell knows how you got there but the cold kept you preserved. It kept you alive.” Fury circles the table. “As soon as you warmed up, the serum began fixing everything wrong with you. Including an intracranial trauma.”

“You mean I hit my head.”

Fury concedes the point with a shrug.

A file lands on the table. Steve catches it and it falls open in his hands. Hands that have failed to catch Bucky twice now. His stomach folds with dread.

What did it mean? What did Bucky mean? Seventy years into the future and he is still haunted by Hydra and its many heads. He thought it was done. The Red Skull was dead. He rubs his mouth. The action does not go unnoticed. He feels their eyes, Fury and Coulson both, on him front and back. Fury as the brooding officer, Coulson as the foot soldier. He’s read enough of Bucky’s pulp fiction to know they probably have other means of surveillance. God _Bucky_.

The future is loud and bright. Times Square had been a shock. This room, Shield, is sterile and cold like Schmidt’s factories. It makes him think.

_Trust no one._

“Who is he?”

He finally asks of the picture included. Of a boy staring into a far off distance. Different unit, different uniform, different place. He racks his brain for even the slightest recollection. He’s got nothing.

Fury looks at him.

“This is Bucky Barnes.”

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ryan Phillippe / John "Doc" Bradley - Flags of Our Fathers (2006)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude: 
> 
> Steve isn't doing great.

Steve wakes up swathed in white.

Everything is so white. The ceiling is white. The walls are white. The sheets are white. The door is white and for a moment, he thinks he’s on the ice. He’s trapped. Suffocating. He should have told Peggy his coordinates but he didn’t. He didn’t want to. When he saw the screen, saw how close he was to home, he couldn’t.

Not without Bucky.

He blinks. Feels the breath of air on his skin. And the sounds. His ears pick up cheering and the thunderous applause.

It’s May 25, 1941. He knows this game. Described it vividly in his letters to Bucky who’d been sent overseas. Baseball games hadn’t been the same after Bucky left. A lot of things weren’t. Life hadn’t been the same with a Bucky-shaped hole in his chest. And it didn’t matter how tall he was or how much weight he could press. That he punched out Hitler every night in front of an adoring crowd. He’d had the best seat in the whole goddamned stadium with a dame on each arm and it didn’t matter because Bucky wasn’t there.

But he remembers this game.

He’s been briefed. It’s to be expected. Hydra’s approached him numerous times over the years only to be met with a violent crack of his shield because folks at Hydra had a tendency to chew Cyclone B if things went sideways.

Steve thinks he’s at a hospital. But it hasn’t been one for long. He knows. He’s an officer; he always gets the pick of the rooms while others have to share. He can’t smell the usual miasma of sickness and dismay corroding the air. Some poor German hausfrau is probably outside, right now, wringing her hands at soldiers with muddy boots trampling her garden.

A table wobbles to a stop by the door and he turns to look. He closes his eyes and reopens them. Looks again because he is dreaming.

He swings his legs off the bed. The rough carpet is a shock to his bare feet and his toes dig into the thousand threads. His balance is shot. He’s lightheaded and shaken like he’s taken a fever—he feels like he’s taken a fever. But it doesn’t stop his mouth from splitting wide at the sight of his best friend, all dolled up in an ironed shirt and khaki slacks that do all sorts of wonderful things to the line of his legs.

Steve tears a little. He’s dead. He _must_ be dead. How else can Bucky be here? Standing? Breathing? And whole? In front of him?

“Bucky?” He croaks.

Bucky frowns and it is beautiful. Steve falls in love with the bemused lines between the other man’s eyes and the slack lips. Bucky licks them once and demands, “Who the hell is Bucky?” Because Steve strides forward, throwing his arms around Bucky’s neck. In hindsight, he thinks he should have questioned it. He knows he should have.

Bucky, fell. And Steve walked willingly into Hydra’s hands. He fought the Red Skull and he, won? His thoughts are jumbled. Too slow to slot back into place. Like a thousand-piece jigsaw he only holds the edges of as he hugs Bucky, still standing there like a giant dope.

Breath is pared from him by each molecule. In a room where the ceiling is white, the walls white, and the sheets are white, Bucky is the first squeeze of color across a canvas. His hair curls like a dark cloud as it is tucked under his chin. It tickles. It’s never been this long before. Free of pomade and so soft.

Steve holds him tight in case this is a dream. A very good dream. In case the floor is about to drop from under them and Bucky forced from his grasp, tossed into the void as though falling off a high mountain.

But Bucky doesn’t disappear. He goes limp like a kitten with its mother. Steve cups the back of his head and counts his breaths, huffed faint against his collarbone where they almost touch skin to skin. The heat of him is fierce and Steve feels like he’ll never be cold again.

“Thank god.” Steve breathes. “I tried Buck. I tried. I really did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let go. I swear to god. The sisters said we’d all meet in heaven but I didn’t know Buck.” He looks at his surroundings miserably. “I didn’t know if I was _allowed_.”

Bucky’s hands knock against his hips before finding purchase in the back of his shirt. Steve shudders. He missed this.

“I thought heaven would be a lot more exciting.” He admits.

A burst of static hurts his ear. They pull apart and Steve immediately touches Bucky who stares in consternation. By chance, the heel of his hand brushes against an object in Bucky’s ear, flesh-colored but clearly out of place.

“Bucky, what...?”

Bucky pushes him away.

There is rapid-fire buzzing like static off a walkie-talkie when someone was trying to get through. After each transmission, Bucky blinks. And when it ends, Bucky runs.

Steve chases after him. The walls fold like cardboard and he only has a brief second to take it all in. An empty building with nothing else. No floors. The ceilings touched the sky.

Bucky’s getting away and he puts on more speed, dashing past hands and warning shouts. He runs out the glass door and finds himself in a scene of chaos. People mob him, flow around him. But Bucky’s presence is a guiding star. He could have picked Bucky out of a thousand faces, ten thousand, and he follows, tethered by something stronger than hope.

As he runs past rows of scaffolding, Bucky pulls him into a corner, squeezing him chest to back. Steve tries to turn his head but Bucky gently guides it forward, hands pressed over his ears.

Steve latches onto those hands like they might leave. He knows they will leave if he doesn’t. Should have known it was too good to be true. Should have known. There is always price to be paid. A price that Bucky always pays.

“Bucky, what the hell is going on?!” It comes out as a big shout. His lungs swell. He feels like he’s going to be unhinged. He feels like he’s going to float up to the top of the empire state building. Maybe he’s still in the ship. Waiting for the inevitable crash. Peggy’s promise. Sister Agnes’ promise.

“It’s 2011. You’ve been asleep for 65 years, 7 months.”

His heart skips a beat, running a badump-thump- _thump_.

“But Bucky,” Steve says helplessly. “You’re alive.”

Bucky shakes his head. He leans in, sniffs once. In Bucky’s eyes lies a stranger. They’re pale blue like a glossy wall of water.

“Trust no one.” He says quietly. After a moment of hesitation, he adds, “ _Hail Hydra_.”

Steve freezes. It’s enough for Bucky to shimmy up the walls.

“Bucky—!”

He turns around. Bucky’s too quick. He shoots down the alley. When he comes out on the other side, Bucky is gone. He is surrounded by sirens. He clamps his hands over his ears, pressing against the last vestiges of sensation scraping on his skin as he is surrounded by men with guns.

Fury introduces himself and confirms.

He’s been asleep.

He thinks, he’s been dreaming.

And now—

He lets out a breath.

The kid on the photo is just that—a kid.

There is more, beneath. At camp. In the forest.

Bucky never stares at the camera. His gaze focuses off to the side like he’s unaware that someone’s taking a picture. It’s a habit. It’s a way of avoiding attention. His fist clenches. Bucky, never, he never was the same after Azzano. He was darker. Like something had opened up inside of him that couldn’t be put back.

Steve tried. He didn’t care. But he understood it was something Bucky had to reconcile himself with. They all had to make compromises.

Even in the official photos, his eyes are just out of focus. Like the lens flare pains him. But this man, this _Bucky_ , takes the camera straight on. He has nothing to hide. He’s proud, undaunted, unafraid, with a young man’s fire. He doesn’t hold himself like Bucky does, not in the photos, not in the sketches with his signature on them.

In a way, baby-faced soldier is more afraid. His face is superimposed on bodies next to him. At the center of the Commandos, tracing a map with an officer. This Bucky does not hold a gun. No rifles. This Bucky is held down by a bag that obscures his height. This Bucky is not his Bucky. He shoves the files back on the table. Back at Fury and the balding man.

“This isn’t funny.”

“We’re not laughing Cap.”

He once held that rank with pride. Not it feels like a joke. He is being held prisoner by people whose futures he fought to protect. He figures it won’t work half as well if he decides to barrel through walls again.

Trust no one.

_Hail Hydra._

“This is a trick.”

He sighs. “You’re trying to trick me. This isn’t Bucky Barnes. What are you trying to pull?”

“You tell us Cap.” Fury shrugs. Opening his palms in a gesture of peace. “We’re in the dark as much as you are. We don’t know the infiltrator. We don’t know how he got in or why. We know he’s damned talented but it wasn’t coincidence he was there when you woke up.”

“Then why are you sure he’s not Bucky?”

“Because as far as the world is concerned, your boy is the kid in the file.”

Steve closes his eyes.

 

The doctors prod him for a while and pronounces him perfect like that’s something to be relieved about. According to them, he should be dead.

“Thought we already took pictures.”

“Those were x-rays.”

Cameras are much smaller now. Machines are streamlined, futuristic— _modern_. He is in the future after all.

He gets two babysitters, agent Kim and Lillie who give him a crash course on the subject of the modern world. They give him highlights of what’s been happening but he’s been around long enough to know that’s not enough. He requests newspapers and understands maybe half of what people are saying. Editorials are obscene. Even the funnies don’t make sense.

Steve goes to the nearest bookstore. The future is big and loud and he has the face the wall and breathe every time a car honks because war is fresh in his bones. He can still hear the grenades and mortar, the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire and bullets. Only this time, he is alone. He doesn’t have the Commandos at his back. He doesn’t have Peggy telling him where to go next. He doesn’t have Bucky.

There are too many books. Many feature his face and he stares at the portraits blankly before putting them back on the shelf. A great many books have colored pictures in them. He gets a book on Bucky and immediately his fingers start itching for a pen because Bucky was never a scoundrel, a cad, a _cad_.

Steve slams the book shut before learning that the pictures are printed on shinier paper, in the middle, and goes to look for those. He goes through every single book because none of them have Bucky,

A huffy girl with thick glasses puts the books back. He apologizes and helps her but he can’t help but shake.

The girl frowns in concern.

“Sir, are you alright? Do you want me to call someone for you?”

He almost bites out _Bucky_ but Bucky is dead and gone. And the man at his bedside was what? His imagination? He breathes hard through his nose. And sees the girl reaching for a device he assumes is a phone. Everyone carries it around. If they’re not taking pictures, they are talking into it. Bucky would have liked to have seen it.

“No.” He croaks. “I’m fine.”

The girl is at a loss when he starts crying. He’s sorry, but he can’t get the words unstuck from his throat. The world seems to bend and melt into slush when he looks down at the picture of James Buchanan Barnes. He doesn’t understand. He saw Bucky. It was him. He was sure of it. But everyone tells him he’s wrong. Everyone tells him that Bucky is not the one he let go. And this stranger is the person he should remember. He wipes his face on his sleeve.

No.

This has to be a trick. He knows that pictures can be doctored. Photos can be changed. Agent Kim showed him something called an App on his portable phone, something that would have been handy in war, called Snapchat. It could make someone’s face fatter, thinner, stick cartoon dog ears on top. Maybe this is the same. There has to be a mix up. Surely someone noticed that there’s been a mistake.

Suddenly, his stomach fills with dread. His stomach is in the trenches while a German bird drop bombs on top. In the same corner of the bookstore everyone gives a wide berth, agent Kim shooting him annoyed glances while agent Lillie supervised, he finds the fate of the Howling Commandos. Dum Dum, KIA working for Shield. Survived by wife and three children. Dum Dum always talked about his sweetheart; he wonders if that was her. Falsworth died of a heart attack. Dernier from cancer—he was _forty-five_. Howard died in a car accident. Jones fell down the stairs after a class and broke his neck.

He claps a hand over his mouth. Morita was alive. Peggy is alive.

And Bucky?

 

Steve goes back to the safe house.

He punches the hell out of the sandbag and when he’s done, he has a miniature breakdown in the showers.

He went out in the ice and came out in a world that’s upside down. Steve rifles through the shelves for something to draw on. Tears out a blank page and sketches out the picture of Bucky’s profile. But it’s not enough. He’s always had an eye for faces but if he doesn’t draw it right now, it might fade. It might mean that Bucky wasn’t real.

Steve draws Bucky, over and over, flipping through the portraits and wondering if he hasn’t drawn Bucky wrong. His babysitters give him covert glances thinking that he’s gone mad. He has gone mad. It is the only explanation.

He doesn’t have a camera, pictures of Bucky doesn’t exist anymore but he remembers him swaggering up the alley in a uniform and taking him to the Expo.

Steve starts drawing. Rips the pages with a pink rubber and curses himself for not taking a photo. The old watch he was found with had Peggy’s picture inside. He never knew how she felt about it. He touches his lips. He did fancy her once. He still does.

He shades the tendons of Bucky’s feet. Just the feet, sloping slightly inside out. The elegance imbued in the fine veins. But do they actually look like this? In his mind’s eye, Bucky is waving and fading out of sight. Bucky is being replaced by a boy kneeling in mud.

Bucky would have been spitting mad had he been alive. He never took kindly to being called the sidekick or younger since he’d lorded over the handful of months over Steve when they were young. A helpless sob leaves his mouth. He sketches frantic and fast. He doesn’t bother fixing anything. It’s all lines on paper. Pieces he remembers like the quirk of his lips, the dimple in his chin and the turn of his wrist. Like if he puts all the pieces together it might become whole. Like he’s trying to find Bucky at the end of the sketchbook. The pencil snaps and he tosses it in anger. It embeds itself in the wall right next to the light switch.

When he’s worn his pencils to stubs, he thinks about paints. Bucky’s blue coat. His red lips. The slow flush around the shell of his ears. Almost bashfully, he asks the agent guarding him for art supplies. Coulson did promise to make the transition as peaceful as possible and agent Kim delivers.

“My sister majored in art.” She says matter-of-fact and shows him a dazzling array of markers and paint, colored pencils that turn to water color and oil pastels that are soft in his hand. He almost says it’s too much. It’s right there on the tip of his tongue. But he reels it back in. He’s angry and he is afraid. He manages a short thank you and holes himself back inside his room.

He doesn’t even notice that it’s close to dawn now that he’s getting used to the weight of paper and different mediums. He likes the colored pencils best. Bucky’s eyes are a brisk grey that looks blue when the sky hits it just right, colorless in the dark, black in the shadows and his stomach gives an abrupt growl of protest, signaling that it was empty.

Before the serum, it could have been a number of things like diarrhea, bloating or constipation. But it’s hunger that gnaws at his guts. His body can tell something’s not right. The future is wrong. He remembers the swoop of Bucky’s back and the weight of his thighs. It’s the fundamental truth that he knows. He cannot trust anyone.

In his tired mind, the evidence is mounting. Bucky had been replaced by a boy from the Pacific Theater when Bucky never set foot there. The Howling Commandos had been maimed. He needed to see Peggy.

Steve sits up and peels a half-finished sketch from his cheek. 

The books hadn’t been terribly specific. His eyes had watered too much to read after. And he is embarrassed by the ruckus he created at the bookstore. When he asks, agents Kim and Lillie look at each other before assuring him that it’s fine. They took care of it. And if he wants to know about the Howling Commandos, there were other ways. Agent Kim opens a flat book with no pages and turns it on. He remembers computers from the war filled with valves, buttons and letters. It’s amazing all that has been shrunk down to this and smaller.

“I’m having déjà vu.” Kim says wryly. “My mother had the same expression.”

“Oh.”

In the meantime, the Agent Kim kicks Lillie into showing him how the internet works. He absorbs the info like a sponge. Lillie applauds him for being a quick study. He marvels at the wealth of information at his fingertips, looks up Bucky and sees the devastatingly gaze of a stranger staring back at him.

Rebecca Proctor (nee Barnes) died in Childbirth. The Barnes died in a fire. Irene Barnes died of influenza in 19XX. Suicide. Murder. He claps a hand over his mouth and breathes, just breathes like his ma told him when he was having trouble and later Bucky, as they laid back to chest, shirtless and sticky in Brooklyn heat. The memories are so vivid he cannot believe they’re not real. Bucky is not real.

He can’t believe that.

By pure accident, he finds himself on a conspiracy site. It’s not much. The articles are well thought out with supporting documents. Steve skims through them idly, hands furrowing lines into paper.

_We have alien gods people._

_What’s to say the government didn’t lie about everything else?_

The site itself is amusing. But there is one article that catches his eye. One that’s stopped on part 1 and hasn’t been updated since. It’s about the Howling Commandos and of Bucky Barnes. Several commenters reply that despite being a sniper, he’s never seen with a rifle. His location is wrong. Bucky Barnes never stood under a palm tree.

No photos exist of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes ( _Jesus, what did his parents have against him?_ wonders DL the site administrator) before 1941 when he was drafted—

Steve wipes his eyes.

—107th infantry. Despite being Captain Steve Rogers’ best friend, records of him are spotty. There are no known relatives of him left to identify him. Childhood records were destroyed in a fire which police conclude was arson.

He carefully pecks out an email to DL on his keyboard. Near the end, he thinks he’s getting the hang of it. He knows where all the letters are now at least. How to make them uppercase or lower. 

Steve presses send and waits. 

 

“Sit down before you wear a hole in the floor Phil.”

“It’s not how I expected this to go.”

“Hm.”

“He gone?” Hill. Fury greets her with a nod. Coulson sits down. Fury could spare more sympathy for his number two but Hill gets him results. Shitty results but you can’t argue with results.

“What are we looking at?”

“We don’t know.”

“Did we at least get a good look at him?”

“He got away clean. Shortly after his visit, the videos are wiped on the first floor.”

“An inside job.”

Fury grunts.

“Looks like it.” Hill replies, implying that she will feed the people responsible their own intestines.

“Is it possible?”

Their priority had been to contain Rogers. The sporadic reports of the serum were hardly reassuring. And with Bruce Banner incident from three years ago, he hadn’t wanted to take the chance.

“A cover up of this scale?” Coulson shakes his head. He doesn’t want to believe it. He’s been singing about how he’s getting his cards signed. Boyhood dreams crushed. Fury sympathizes but he needs everyone’s head in the game. “Are you telling me that the American public has been lied to all this time?”

Hill shrugs. “The Captain maintains it was Bucky Barnes.”

Coulson makes a noise.

“Impossible.”

“Romanoff?”

“She’s en route. Her transport was... delayed.”

Fury sits back.

Fury’s been taught to read people out of necessity. It was the job. Never knew when someone was going to put a gun in his face. But it bothers him that they couldn’t even find him. Their infiltrator was good. Too good. Good enough to get around the cameras and have someone conveniently knock out Shield surveillance just as he was weaving in and out from under his nose. Was it AIM? Ten Rings? The Hulk Busters? He didn’t know but he’d find out.

He sighs.

“Get me Stark.”


	4. New York Set

They find Beyer ass-up in a van with a corpse strapped to the driver’s seat. Rumlow turns the man over, grimaces and someone yarks off to the side.

He’s dead.

“ _Shit_.”

The Winter Soldier is gone.

 

His name is Robert Green. He is a level 3 agent on probation. He majored in psychology. He does historic reenactments on weekends. He is twenty-seven and his life fits on a single page. Perhaps he and the Soldier are not that different after all.

The personality graft bleeds through. His vision blurs. He shakes his head once before stopping because it makes his migraine worse. Robert Green would probably go through a hospital. He-would-never. He folds his shoulders to make himself appear smaller in a crowd. He pushes a cap down on his head when he passes a souvenir shop.

There is no need for subterfuge. He knows what he has to do. His feet take him down to 34th street to the tired rows of greyhound buses at the terminal. He has failed his mission. He must present himself to Command for punishment.

But.

The Mission.

A wrinkle furrows down his head. He knew him.

He shakes his head again.

He requires assistance. He needs the ~~Doctor~~. ~~The chair~~.

The Engineer is dead. He doesn’t know what happened to the Boy.

The Mission is.

This is what he knows of the Mission. The Mission’s name is Steve Rogers, born July 4th 1918\. The son of Sarah and Joseph Rogers. Joseph Rogers died in the war. The first one. Sarah died in 1936. The date eludes him but he remembers—

Wild-eyed, he braces his body against gum-sticky and piss-stained walls because he cannot do anything else. He cannot be anything else.

 

Comprehension returns in a slow trickle. Like a spoonful of honey stirred into tarry tea. The Soldier drops to-his-knees. It reminds him of boot camp. He’s had time to think. He can almost taste the mud in his mouth and water soaking his boots. He opens his mouth and scrapes his teeth over the squared toe of Command’s shoes. Command steps away and the Soldier rocks back on his heels, stung.

“You think power is when you plug him from the back like he’s a naughty schoolboy. No, this is real power. Look how he’s come back to us.”

The air is tense. He does not know what to do.

“Mission report.”

His mouth opens but nothing comes out. Panic manifests in the way his metal fingers grasp for the seams in the tiles. He failed the mission. Mission is alive; Mission knows of Hydra’s existence. The secret is out and he feels vindication broils his stomach like the metal prongs in the chair.

Command frowns.

 

“Wipe him.”

 

His ears ring. Someone has been screaming. He has been screaming. His throat is raw.

“Good morning Soldier.”

“... _No_.”

 

“ _Stop_.”

 

“Wipe him.”

 

“Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th—”

 

“Again.”

 

Memories gather in handfuls of splintered glass. How does he know if they are even real? If the past seventy years has been a nightmare, where does he even begin to patch the fractures in his mind?

What if he is already dead?

 

The chair groans from his movement. He wakes up, retches as he spits the mouthpiece in a technician’s face. His skin is clammy. His legs are numb. He has been wiped. He’s been raped. He’s been violated. His back is in an arch as he lunges for something, anything he can stick in his throat.

He wants to die.

Command looks displeased. There were others before him. The Colonel who still visits occasionally. The General-Doctor- _Engineer_. The Boy. The Mission. All gone now.

He stares at Command through the veil of his hair. There are limits to what the chair can do. It leaves certain areas of his brain intact. Has to, to make him useful. But he cannot find the frost at the back of his teeth, snow in his eyes or the chill in his arms.

_Too soon_ —his mind whispers. He remembers the shoes Command is wearing. He even recalls the texture on his tongue, the taste of gas and turpentine.

They didn’t bother putting him on the ice. They simply wiped him over and over and over again.

A technician eyes him warily from his side.

“Good morning Soldier.”

“Ready to comply.” He rasps.

“Yes,” Command says upon a moment of reflection. “You will be.”

 

“ _Wipe him_.”

 

“But why him? There are plenty who are willing, ready to lay down their lives for the cause. What can this man do that the others cannot?”

“Because he is not a man.”

 

Muscles draw tight over his ribs like drums. He heaves but nothing comes up. He doesn’t scream anymore. He tastes the blood in his mouth. He can’t.

 

“Do you know why the Winter Soldier is the best? Because he does not exist. You cannot kill a ghost. The Russians have their Black Widows. We have their winter. Wipe him.”

 

They pull him off the chair. He cannot feel his legs. Perhaps he is paralyzed. The air is thin. He cannot be sure no knife has scraped under-his-skin. Two men have their guns trained on him as he is cut out of his clothes. He calculates their trajectory and thinks that a gutshot is acceptable damage to disable both.

He doubles over when he is kicked in the genitals. Laughter echoes off the white tiles. A stream of water punches him in the stomach. He falls flat on his side and stays there to catch his breath. The bruise on his chest progresses, red, and to green. Back.

After they shut the water off, they wipe him between his ass, his arm pits and shaves his face. He’s been here before. He stands boneless and compliant because he does not wish to be hurt. He is presented to Command but Command is not alone. A woman stares at him with a calculating gaze, a touch screen in one hand and her mouth pinched white.

He thinks he might know her. He might have even killed her once-or-twice or a thousand times and had it strained from his brain.

She says, “These procedures were designed for short-term missions and minimal engagement in mind. We’ve seen what the Avengers are capable of.”

Command smiles faintly at the moniker.

“The Avengers changes things.” He agrees. “I assume you have something for me Paula?”

“Yes sir. After the Battle of New York, Baron Von Strucker analyzed the properties of Loki’s scepter. He was able to harness the energy towards extraordinary results. I believe that you have seen the reports on the enhanceds.”

“I have.” Command replies, eyes flickering towards the touch screen offered in her hands.

“There is a girl. Young but passionate. The chair is medieval. She will be the future.”

Whatever he sees must please Command. He nods with a slight huff of amusement.

“Impressive.” He says. Command stares at the blonde woman appraisingly. “Hydra appreciates loyalty and hard work. I will commend your performance to the council.”

“Thank you sir.”

“How fast can you arrange transport?”

Her smile is poison.

“She’s already here.”

 

He finds the girl staring at him when he finally opens his eyes. She is a young woman in her early twenties. Her cheekbones sharp enough to cut stone. There is something strange about her, fay, fanatic and a touch starved. She makes his skin crawl and that-is-wrong. He remembers girls, many, some he killed, some who taught him and others he taught. But something dark lurks under the flat iron of her eyes and he pushes into his handler’s hand, trying to get away.

“A man.” She says flatly in her Sokovian accent. A cross bounces against her throat. Red lightning leaps between her fingers like fireworks and he knows that cannot be normal. “What can he do?”

“I take it that you are not familiar with American history.”

“Why would I?” The girl shoots Command a dark look. “Are you familiar with Sokovia?”

The crackle of energy cuts off. The Soldier’s toes curl and he knows he can take her if the world just stops spinning and lets him get his legs under.

Command gives the girl a paternal pat on the shoulders.

“The important thing is that the right person at the right time and place can make all the difference.”

“ _Him_?” She snarls.

He flinches. He can feel her in the air. Hair rise on end. He cannot move. He knows what is coming and.

“No my dear, I meant you.”

Uncertainty wars in her face. She raises a hand and Command allows it. Whatever she finds must satisfy her because her face grows hungry-lean like a wolf in winter. She is breathless, her chest heaving in the open collared jacket wrapped around her frame.

“He can destroy Avengers—and Stark?”

They strap him in the chair. He cannot move. His legs cannot stand. He holds onto his newest handler for as long as he can before he is beaten into submission. His right eye swells shut. Blood dribbles down his chin. The girl looks down at him in contempt.

She brings a hand to the side of his face.

He thought it would hurt _more_.

 

The collar is stiff and over-starched. His mouth is parched. His back aches as though it’s been folded in half.

He squirms as he is dressed. Holds his breath when a hand too many brush against his inseam.

Nothing is left to chance. He is fitted with suspenders over grey slacks. His cuffs are pinned with silver snakes and emerald eyes. His hair has been cut. He doesn’t remember his hair being cut.

The guns follow him when he stumbles, following the path of his ruined shoulder. His left sleeve is empty. A technician fights to insert a tracker in a plain prosthetic.

“No.” Command says, observing. “Leave that off. I think the Captain has a certain appreciation for broken things.”

He is in a daze. He feels sick. His head feels overfull. It feels like there is something inside his head. The girl put it inside his head. His breath quickens. He does not see the girl but that does not mean he can’t feel her.

“Pay attention.” And he does. He always does. Command-is-important. Pierce-is-important. Obedience is paramount. This is not a question. There has never been a doubt of his obedience.

Command loops a length of silk around his neck. He knows how much force needs to be applied to stop a man. He knows that in two moves, he can get out of the hold and return-the-favor. He blinks. Command pats the tie down his breast bone and doesn’t comment on the murder in his eyes.

“There will be a party.” Command explains. “To celebrate the age of miracles.”

He is released and he chokes on his first breath.

“You will accompany Mr. Bakshi as cover. Your objective is infiltration.”

He had been expecting murder. His gaze slides off the shoulders of Command’s suit. He knows what he is being asked to do. The Soldier has dismantled small countries in a matter of days. Breaking apart a team—a team of men, monsters, and gods should be easy.

Breath rattles his throat. A silent but a horrible things creaming to be let out.

“That is all for now.”

The words take hold. Growing virulent like kudzu in summer. They hold him captive. Grounded to the floor. Even when the tailor snips off the last thread, he stands in one place, knees locked, off balance now that his arm is gone. His neck itches. Sweat dampens his back.

“Ready to comply.” He wheezes.

“Now, none of that Jack.”

And at once, he transforms into a dewy-eyed child who’s been caught drinking his father’s scotch long before he is legal, loose-limbed and coy. Pampered, privileged but charming enough that it can be forgiven.

“I’m ready sir.”

“Better.” Pierce approves.

He spins once on his heel to be inspected. It’s hard with only one arm.

“Rumlow.” Pierce says.

“Sir.”

“Try not to make the same mistake Beyer did.”

In spite of himself, Jack shivers.

Rumlow looks like he’s bitten into a rotting lemon.

“Yes sir.”

 

“So, you are my new assistant.” Sunil Bakshi comments, trailing sticky fingers everywhere.

Rumlow rolls his eyes when a thumb peels back the collar and rubs predictably against the Soldier’s leaping pulse. He saw this coming from a mile away. But Bakshi is a Hydra loyalist. Loyalty is rewarded. It’s not his fucking business if he’s stupid enough to willingly dip his wick in a gun barrel.

The Soldier bites his lips. He kind of wants to take him aside and shake him because he looks so goddamned young. And innocent. The Soldier looks towards Rumlow for support and Rumlow scowls in mutiny. He’s trying to tell the sorry bastard to go ahead and punch Bakshi in the dick with the force of his goddamned mind but the Soldier’s not having it. He turns away in disgust.

Bakshi smiles.

“A little privacy then perhaps.”

 

He runs his tongue against his teeth. He can still taste the salt and sweat and come, long after he’d swallowed green listerine and hand soap to his scour his mouth clean. His lips are puffy and red and Rumlow grows at him to keep it together.

He’s supposed to obey orders. Soldiers obey orders.

Robert Green wouldn’t have obeyed these orders. The thought passes through his head startlingly quick like a bird in the grass, disappearing into the sun. Robert Green was a level 3 Shield agent on probation. He majored in psychology. He ~~does~~ did historic reenactments on the weekends. He is twenty-seven and his life fits on a single page.

Robert Green was an idealist.

They enter the gallery, rich and opulent like something out of a renaissance painting. It’s crowded. The most dangerous weapon is a glass of champagne or an outstretched hand. He picks out Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Pepper Potts, Anthony Stark and Jasper Sitwell in a single sweep. Something stutters inside him when he lays eyes on Steve Rogers and Bakshi leans into his ear. “Here is your chance.”

He introduces himself as Jack Benjamin. A decorated soldier and a veteran. He made rounds as though he had been born to do it. Drops Bakshi’s name in one breath and Pierce’s with the other.

Joy Meachum laughed at his flattery and allowed a kiss to the back of her hand.

By the time he gets to Rogers, he is breathless and high with color. His eyes are wide and luminous and Rogers looks like he’s been struck by a two-by-four, the giant dope. The man opens his mouth and the syllables he wraps his lips around aren’t his name.

“Bucky?”

He takes a step backwards at the verbal gut-punch. He frowns. He’s heard that name before. His name is Jack. He’s not. He can’t be anything else.

Barton buries his elbow in the Captain’s side.

“ _C’mon Cap_.” He hisses. “Keep it together.”

“Right.” Rogers says in a daze. And proceeds to put his foot in it.

“What happened to your arm?”

Barton groans and plants his face in the palm of his hands.

“Oh God.” Rogers looks stricken. “I didn’t—I’m so _sorry_ —!”

Jack takes pity on Rogers. Smooths his expression into welcome and tilts his lips into a grin.

“It’s one of the better compliments I’ve gotten.” Jack assures him. “Sir, it’s an honor.”

“Oh um.” Says Rogers, startled. “Thank you. It... it means a lot to me.” And pulls him into a handshake.

It’s not unpleasant. But it’s long and awkward because everyone is staring. Some stop to stare. Cameras swivel to their joined hands. Fucking vultures.

This is what he knows about Steve Rogers. He was born in 1918. The only child of Sarah and Joseph Rogers. Joseph Rogers died in the war—the first one. He grew up in Brooklyn. Enlisted in the war. He is a soldier. Like him. Not-like-him. He had a friend once. His name was Bucky Barnes.

Bucky Barnes is dead.

Now he is stuck. He cannot move.

A hand slaps him on the back. A glass of scotch sloshes messily against his front and he frowns at the interloper who stares back, eyes intense.

Stark cracks a smile.

“Hey soldier, how ‘bout a dance?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> +According to wikipedia, Howard Stark died in 1991. That seems a little slow for him in figuring out that Shield has been infiltrated by a Nazi cult.  
> ++Non-con/Dub-con tag is for Bucky who cannot give consent  
> +++Cap 2 was awesome. But it seems to me that in the movie, the Winter Soldier has a personability of a cafeteria spoon and defrosted when someone needed to be killed. Seeing as how a trigger-happy one-trick pony can hardly be called a history maker, I made him more like his comic book counterpart. Or I guess, Natasha with a dick. If Natasha was brainwashed so often she could barely recall names.


End file.
